


Hollow to Your Bones

by faerymorstan



Series: Snow Queen 'Verse [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Autumn, Frogs, M/M, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerymorstan/pseuds/faerymorstan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Truth outs bright as coreopsis, painful as buckthorn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Burning

**Author's Note:**

> With frogs for khorazir, and marsh for aderyn, and great affection for you both. Just remember that it is, eventually, all fine. <3
> 
> Google Docs thinks this work has 221 words. AO3 thinks it has 218. Sigh.
> 
> [ETA aw hell this thing is growing and now the old title's a chapter title and there's a new title. Brain, why you gotta with the unpredictable.]
> 
> [ETA yet again oh shitbins I did a derp and used the wrong canonical villain-name ugggghhh. Okay. Fixed. Also sorry. Also ugh. I wasn't even this sloppy during NaPo, guise. Very, very sorry.]

They stand silent in the cattails, still in the autumn air. The water’s a glass for the clouds.

 _Lots of frogs today,_ Sherlock says: his first words since they left Mrs. Montague’s. 

_Listen--_

_Over there, for example._ Sherlock points to the creature blinking and breathing, mud-shiny, on the shore. _That’s_ Pelophylax ridibundus.

A bug, all legs, skitters across the water’s surface. The frog eyes it gelatinously.

John sighs. _I can tell you’ve deduced it, but--_

 _Over there is_ Pelophylax esculentus _\--edible, in theory--and I saw an agile frog on the walk here. Rare, those. I ought to--_

 _Sherlock._ The frog leaps into the marsh with a _plop_ ; Sherlock, shaking, lets John lead him to dry ground, steps into John’s arms under a boxelder. 

_When do you go?_ The boxelder drops yellow leaves around them; John drapes his scarf, blue and striped, over Sherlock’s shoulders.

 _A fortnight._ Sherlock makes a noise against John’s neck. _Shh, love. I’ll come back. I’ll tell you stories about Lord Milverton’s army and his ridiculous war. You’ll complain that I missed everything of importance. It’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine._

From the water: the sound of frogs, calling one another home.

They walk back to Mrs. Montague’s arm in arm. Silent. On the horizon, smoke trails mark where leaf piles are burning.


	2. Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truth outs bright as coreopsis, painful as buckthorn.

A year scrapes by without John. Sherlock craves cases, strays to morphine and cocaine when he hasn’t any. Mrs. Montague mutters _eviction_ and Mycroft murmurs _recompense,_ tells Sherlock that caring is not an advantage and he’d do better to stifle sentiment.

Then comes a letter (not lapis lazuli, the ink, but iron gall): Lord Milverton’s seal, Lord Milverton’s hand, Lord Milverton’s _regret to inform you_ and _missing presumed dead._

Sherlock stands on the porch. Lowers the letter. Stares at the bushes flanking the steps.

Sentiment.

He will not speak John’s name into a blossom. In _presumed,_ worlds: eyes willed dry, Sherlock waits, quick of step and grim of mouth. _Find him,_ he tells Mycroft, but Mycroft’s politic letters go unanswered as Sherlock’s pointed ones.

Three years and Sherlock piece by piece folds himself into himself. A machine, the villagers agree: a brilliant fellow, their detective, but not a scrap of feeling in him. 

_There is, though,_ says Molly, the woman who tends the dead in a village near the River Baker. Sherlock’s often there for cases; this time, he’s scowling over a bloody handprint. _How you hold your pipe, your scarf--I’ve seen you sad, Sherlock._

Sherlock breathes deep to tell her she’s wrong, but truth outs bright as coreopsis, painful as buckthorn. 

Molly pours tea. _Poor raven. You’re hollow to your bones._


	3. Boots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I covered your roses in winter,_ Sherlock thinks.

Early spring and storms shake the walls, drive rain in rhythms on the roof. Sherlock dreams of hail hitting the house and wakes to find the sky still and humid, the door knocked against. Slides on his dressing gown and shuffles toward the sound, thinking _client,_ thinking _tea._

On his porch: muscle wasted, gold greyed, face thin and seamed and sun-browned: John. 

Sherlock’s stomach drops. His eyes flicker. _You were shot. Shoulder. The left. Your thigh..._

_Yeah._ John shifts on his cane. Looks at Sherlock’s bare feet. _Healers say it’s fine now._

_Three years,_ says Sherlock, not quite a question.

John’s lips become a white line. _A fever. A blackmailer. A bit of work for your brother._

Heart fluttering hard, Sherlock stares. John’s eyes older and the blue the same, his coat torn and mended, his clothes cut too large for his weight.

_I wanted to write you._ John’s left hand clenches: didn’t used to. _Every day. But Mycroft gave orders. So._

_I dried boxelder leaves and kept them close,_ Sherlock thinks. 

_I wept the day your scarf stopped smelling of you,_ Sherlock thinks. 

_I covered your roses in winter,_ Sherlock thinks. 

Sherlock’s mouth won’t move words. 

_Right, then._ John adjusts his rucksack, turns, limps down the steps. Leaves irregular puddles in the muddy ground: places pressed low beneath his boots.


	4. Baker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock says, honey-thick, _I know a place by the River Baker._

John reaches the lane; Sherlock feels splintered steps and cold garden beneath his feet. He shouts, _My bones are wax._

John stops.

 _I’ve comb for marrow,_ Sherlock says, _but it won’t hold honey. I’m hollow._

Next he knows, he’s on his back and blinking into John’s so-close face.

 _You fainted,_ John says, one palm on Sherlock’s bare chest. 

Sherlock tastes metal and gunpowder and burnt flesh where rose oil once was. Thinks, _I must love you in such a way that you remember yourself;_ says, _Impossible. I never faint._

 _Right. You had a lie-down in the mud, then._ John leans his forehead against Sherlock’s. _I’m sorry,_ he says, his breath warm on Sherlock’s lips. _I’m so sorry. I never thought you’d be so affected._

_You’re an idiot,_ Sherlock mutters.

John’s grinning when Sherlock kisses him.

 _Let’s wash up before we--before anything else,_ John says against Sherlock’s mouth. They help each other to their feet and up the steps, and John builds the fire as Sherlock draws the water from the well.

 _You first,_ says John, when the tub sits steaming. Sherlock strips and eases in; John ladles water over Sherlock’s hair and lathers peppermint soap in Sherlock’s curls. Says, _I want to find us a house._

John massages Sherlock’s scalp; Sherlock says, honey-thick, _I know a place by the River Baker._

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t actually know anything about anything, but I search the Googles and borrow other people’s smartnesses.
> 
> [Water Frogs](http://www.surrey-arg.org.uk/SARG/08000-TheAnimals/WaterFrogs/SARG2WaterFrogs2.asp)  
> [Marsh Frog](http://www.herpetofauna.co.uk/marsh_frog.htm)  
> [Agile Frog](http://www.surrey-arg.org.uk/SARG/08000-TheAnimals/SARGSpeciesData.asp?Species=Agile_Frog)  
> [Marsh Goodness](http://www.lakecountyspecies.org/browse.cfm)


End file.
